


Cutting Water with a Knife

by Savageandwise



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Angst, Implied Het, M/M, McLennon, Outside Observer, POV First Person, Sexual Content, lost weekend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-01 02:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12146883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageandwise/pseuds/Savageandwise
Summary: A quarrel between loved ones is like cutting water with a knife.-Old ProverbJohn and Paul's relationship through May's eyes.





	Cutting Water with a Knife

"What a time to grow a pair."

That's what I tell him. It’s three in the morning.

"Where's Yoko?"

That’s the second thing I ask.

It could go two ways at this point. I sit up in bed and brace myself for the worst. But he laughs and I know I’m in the clear. I forgot the power of his laugh. The way his face lights up and his nose wrinkles. I forgot how much I love to make him laugh.

"Fung Yee. Fung Yee," he sings. My heart is going a million miles an hour. And I think: how does he do it? How does he get me to throw away all my principles in under a minute?

Fung Yee is the good cop. May the bad cop. It took me far too long to figure out that neither role is particularly desirable. We haven't met in almost half a year. Haven't spoken in three months. I hear his voice on the radio and start to cry. And here he is again. Here he is again and again.

When she made the proposition way back when, she thought she was appealing to my Chinese upbringing. She thought it was in my nature to be a concubine. To serve the first wife. She didn't think I'd do it for him. She didn't think I'd try to keep him.

"You get him to put a baby in you." That's what Ma said. "You get him to stay."

I told her she had no idea what she was talking about. When Sean was born she didn't say I told you so. That's not the Asian mother's way.

"Smart woman, that Yoko," she said instead. "Japanese. Crafty. Now that she has his son he won't ever leave her."

She didn't have to say I told you so. Her way cut deeper.

"What do you want, John?" I ask.

I’m good at the initial rebuff but he is good at wearing me down. That's how he got me the first time. If you ask me, though, we women are trained to capitulate. It's easier than arguing. And after all, isn't that what every girl wants? A man who will kiss her against her will in an elevator?

“I've been waiting to do that all day long.” That's what he said after he kissed me. He must have known I'd wanted it. He must have known I'd sat in bed listening to Beatles albums imagining John Lennon was kissing me.

The thing was Ringo was my favourite but secretly, I wanted Paul. Most girls wanted Paul. He was the pretty one. Even Yoko had chased him first, only starting up with John when she saw she had no chance with him.

As it turned out, Paul was what I got. Though not in the way I’d dreamed of.

I often wondered in the time we spent together how Yoko felt about it. That her rival was not a twenty-four- year-old girl but a man. A man who lived across an ocean on a farm in Scotland.

"Do you think I should do it? Do you think I should record with Paul? If I get the chance again?"

We've had this talk before. I know my lines by heart. We’ve been having this talk for the last six years.

"It's never too late," I assure him at once. "People are desperate for you and Paul to get back together." 

That is your number one job when you’re with John: assuring him that it’s okay to want what he wants. And also assuring him that he is wanted. Sometimes you have to be sneaky about it, or he'll complain you’re patronising him.

This is my method: "Oh...John...I heard so and so said you were the brain of The Beatles... You are clever with lyrics. Paul is so literal."

Sometimes only a steady stream of constant professions of love and admiration will work. That was the way Cynthia did it.

Other times you have to be plain speaking. "Don't be pathetic John, they love you. Stop feeling sorry for yourself!" Yoko's style.

I think Paul uses a combination of all three tactics and in the end, before it was all over, he didn’t even have to speak. He could control John with a well-timed shake of his head, pursing of his lips.

There is a long pause during which I can feel John’s hesitation hovering between us. I know he is deep into some memory I’m not privy to. He is remembering some detail. He used to tell me those things sometimes, little things about Paul. Like did I know he sometimes cried during sessions. Not a lot, just a few tears. I was too embarrassed to ask him what sort of sessions. Sometimes Paul would borrow his clothes before a concert. He figured it was some sort of clothes hoodoo. John borrowed my clothes all the time. I know he borrows Yoko’s, too. And I know Paul and Linda share clothing. I have a t-shirt I stole from John while we were still together. I don’t wear it but sometimes I sleep with it, clinging to it like a kid with a teddy bear. It doesn’t smell like John anymore, it just smells like me.

John told me when Paul was tired or upset he pulled on his hair. He liked chocolate covered raisins. That last I knew already, because John often asked me to buy them when he was homesick. Not homesick for England. Sick. Longing for his soul's home. 

It used to make me mad to hear those things. And I'd get back at him by feeding Yoko details he would have rather kept from her. How many times he listened to Paul's new album. How many times Paul had called that week. The time he called out Paul’s name in his sleep.

“You're only harming yourself, May,” he'd say, incredulous. I hadn’t cared. All I had wanted was to hurt him and Yoko and Paul. John chided me for giving into Yoko’s demands.

“It’s difficult for her to let go of me,” he explained. “You can't help who you love.”

That much is true anyway.

"May," he says in a soft voice. His bedroom voice. "I love you."

I am taken aback, I often am when he says those words despite the fact that I have heard him say them countless times. I’ve heard him sing them even more often. I have long since figured out that 'I love you' doesn't mean the same thing to John. Doesn't mean what it means to other people. I only heard him say the words to Paul once. And when he did there was nothing romantic about it. It was like a declaration of war. It was like a curse.

"I know you don't really mean that, John," I tell him.

Sometimes I let myself believe it because everyone needs to feel loved. I say it back and pretend that we have a shot at real happiness.

"I do. I miss you so much, sweet bird. I want to be in your arms right now."

Sometimes he sounds like a shitty love song. Worse than the sort of stuff Paul churns out. I fall for it anyway.

"I miss you," he repeats.

I can feel myself giving in. One more word and I'll order a town car. I'll have just enough time for a shower before he arrives.

"We should have gone to New Orleans."

I feel my insides turn to stone. It isn't about me at all. It never is. It’s always about Paul Fucking McCartney.

"Go to sleep, John."

"I'm so lonely, Fung Yee. I'm so lonely all the time."

He is almost forty years old. He still sounds like a little boy. When we slept in L.A. he'd sometimes hold my breast. Not like a lover, there was nothing sexual about it, but like a child.

"I feel like...I don't even exist anymore. I needed to hear you. Just to make sure...I'm still here, aren't I?"

"You're here, John,” I assure him. I want to tell him he could have asked Yoko as much but I’m not brave enough.

"I'm going to leave her. She won't even notice. She can have all the money if it makes her happy. All I want is Sean."

I blow out my breath slowly. Force myself to calm down. I’m not getting mixed up in all that again. Not again. Not at four in the morning.

Summer 1974. Linda and Paul came to dinner. I was nervous. I made couscous and roasted peppers. Before dinner John had two burgers cooked rare. He laughed at Paul, whose favourite food had once been roast beef. In the kitchen I asked Linda if she thought he'd get a divorce. A look of pure terror crossed her face before she managed to relax her features.

“Oh. He might. He seems so happy with you.” She sounded American again. As if the question had shocked her back into her natural accent.

We looked at each other then. We didn’t have to say it out loud.

“You're so lucky you have Paul,” I said.

“I am,” Linda agreed. “The luckiest woman in the world.” 

She looked at the door quickly, ashamed. Behind it we could hear the sound of Paul's laughter and the hypnotic melody of John's voice. It didn't sound as though he were telling him a joke.

"You won't leave her," I tell him at last.

Sometimes I play the game. I pretend to believe him. We spend an hour talking about all the things we’re going to do when he does it. He talks about it like he's a convict.

"When I get free," he says.

We talk about spending the whole day in bed. He recites all the different positions he wants to fuck me in. He talks about food a lot. Ice cream. And chocolate malted milkshakes. Ribs and deep-fried wontons. Chips. The British kind. He isn't ever going to eat sushi again. I always want to ask if that is a euphemism for Yoko's cunt but I'm too afraid of provoking his anger. I wonder what Paul would say? 

"I will. I promise. We can get that house you loved in Montauk. We can go to the beach, get tan as Indians and eat lobster rolls. I can finally meet your mother. Thank her for all the good soup."

I stand up, pad into the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. Not because I want to drink tea but because I need to keep busy. I’m afraid I'll start believing him if he weaves the dream any brighter. I wonder if he does this with Paul. If he tells him he misses him. And all the things he longs to do to him if they can only find an excuse to be alone.

"My mother –" I start. I can't finish.

Ma was the one who said it when I showed her the house in Montauk.

“So all the Beatles can be together. In one spot? Or just those two?”

I asked her what she meant. She reminded me that Paul and Linda vacationed in Montauk in the summer, she read it in some celebrity mag. I remembered it, too. Linda had mentioned it a few times.

"Oh, Fung Yee... The wife is bad enough. But this..."

She used the word in Cantonese.

I shut her up quick after that. She had no right to judge me. She had no right to tell me what sort of man I ought to be with. The irony of it was she stayed silent all through my tales of John’s cruel streak, the moody spells and scathing insults, she stayed silent when I told her how he’d kicked me when I lay on the ground. That was all common-place to her. Had she not suffered through worse with my father? Had she not seen me suffer through worse? Hadn't she stayed silent all those years he beat and humiliated. But this… this “unnatural” predilection, this is what made her speak up.

My mother's voice had the ability to penetrate my cocoon of denial. I asked myself how badly I wanted this. Was this my fairytale happy end? Or had I just wanted to beat Yoko?

I decided to ask Linda about it when we saw each other in New Orleans. I was going to ask her about it face to face. We were finally going to be honest. If she didn't go for it, I was going to tell her about what I'd heard. Those words of love that sounded like a curse. But we never went to New Orleans. He went back to Yoko instead.

"You know Paul is in jail, don't you, John?" I ask him.

There is a _click, click, click_ on the other end of the phone. The sound of a cigarette being lit. Then a soft whimper. I wait a beat before I continue.

"In Japan. Because of the drugs."

He is crying on the other end of the phone.

"John," I say gently. "Is that why you really called me?"

I can hear him sniffle against the receiver. He isn't sobbing very loud. Maybe he’s afraid someone other than me will hear him.

"I really did miss you," he says.

Part of me wants to hang up. The other part still wants him to love me.

"It's okay. I'm here." It’s so easy to slide back into that role, I terrify myself. It’s so easy to be a comfort to him.

"May. He's so... he's just so pretty. Even now… what if..."

He is tearing himself apart over this, probably has been ever since the news broke.

"It's going to be okay. He has good lawyers. He'll be okay."

There is no reassuring John tonight. He clears his throat and I can hear the watery sound of a man choking back tears.

I wonder what exactly he is imagining. His slender boy held down and brutalised by criminals? The thought excites me. My hand flutters down to my lap but I don't have the guts to press my thumb between my legs.

"What if..."

"Shh..."

"We argued. Before... I told him to piss off. How could I? After everything? We had just started to… "

“It’s not your fault,” I assure him. But very likely it is.

“I told him he couldn’t just show up with his guitar when I was looking after the baby.”

His voice breaks dangerously. John can be like this. He’ll push someone away and then regret it passionately. He’ll go to ridiculous lengths to win someone back. Grovel. Shower them with gifts and kisses. Yoko knows the safest course to navigate on that perilous sea. She manipulates him using that old guilt tactic popular with Asian and Jewish mothers. I’m not too good at it. Paul, it seems, once excelled at the game and then forgot the rules.

“He knows you didn’t mean it like that,” I assure him.

I have no idea what Paul knows or not. I sometimes wish I’d gone to New Orleans anyway. I wish I’d cornered Paul in some seedy Nola night club and plied him with drinks until he was supple and loose-tongued. Then I would have asked him straight. Looked him right in the eyes. "Tell me to my face that you were lovers. Was that what you were? Or was this just something he wanted? Was it an ongoing thing or just one of those things?"

It’s hard to tell with John. That line is muddled. The line between things he wants to be and things that are.

“But if he doesn’t? If he thinks I meant it? You know…before this happened I was angry with him. He told me he’d be staying in the suite in Japan… you know the one Yoko and I… you know.”

I do know.

“And I was so angry, the nerve of him staying there, you know… with her. It meant… we could never stay there again. But I didn’t want this.”

I struggle not to laugh, exhale in one slow stream. The kettle begins to whistle and I move it from the hub in a hurry so that John doesn’t complain about the noise on my end. I’m out of the good stuff so I use an old bag of Lipton’s that probably tastes like dust.

“You didn’t do anything, John. Just because you were angry… come on…”

He sniffles loudly. “I was so angry, May, out of my head. I wished… and then I spent bloody ages with Mother, just going over every hurtful thing he’d ever done… And I kept thinking of more and more right up to...right back to the Liverpool days. “

Mother. Oh, for fuck's sake. Can't he see how she manipulates him? Sometimes I fantasise about slapping some sense into John. I’ll go over to the Dakota with a box full of cannoli or something like that, some excuse. I’ll set the box down and I’ll slap him so hard he’ll hear bells. I’ll tell him Yoko is the devil and I wish he’d just open his eyes and see her for what she is.

“You didn’t curse him. There's no such thing, okay? It’s not real!”

I don't know about that. I believe in curses. I think my father cursed me when I was born. I think he never wanted me to know love. But John loves me. He said so. He just said it, that can't have been a lie. Right? And this is what he needs to hear now. So this is what I tell him.

“It’s not real.”

"What if I did?" he whispers it low, hesitant. "What if I hated him so much I did this?"

One day John told me he thought Paul had cast a spell on him.

No shit, Sherlock.

He told me they'd argued. Oh, it must have been '66 because of that movie soundtrack Paul had done. Family something. And John had thrown some kind of fit. He had told Paul he'd thought the music was sacred. Something special between them. The way John always told it Paul had broken down in tears.

“No. I should have asked you if you wanted to do it with me,” Paul said. “We're never any good without each other. You need me and I need you.”

You always had to take John's stories with a grain of salt. He didn't always lie outright. Sometimes the dialogue was true but the roles were reversed. Sometimes the story was about someone else entirely. I think that story was mostly true. Except that I think it was John who had been crying. And I think they kissed then. A kiss to seal the curse. You know. I'm sure it hadn't been intentional. But that's always the sort of curse that binds true. Like my father standing over my crib when I was a day old refusing to touch his newborn child. _Who could ever love her? Look at her._

“What about the necklace?” John asks me then.

I’m surprised he remembers the necklace. Sometimes he does that: casually mentions something you were certain he had no memory of. He often seems oblivious when he is really listening, collecting random details that he will later drop into conversations like gumdrops, like chocolate kisses. He’ll remember someone’s name, ask if your family member is feeling better after they’ve been ill, he’ll recall your favourite colour, favourite food. He is more thoughtful than he appears to be. But this. This memory is no chocolate kiss.

The necklace my mother had given me as a child. She made me swear never to take it off. She made me swear three times. In a fit of drunken rage John tore it from my throat and crushed it under his shoe. I can still hear the crunch of the broken jade against the tile of the floor. He broke my luck. He broke it into bits. That should have been where our story ended but I’m a sucker for a man in tears. He cried so much when he realised what he’d done I had no will left to be angry with him. When Ma learned what had happened she told me,: “That’s all mumbo jumbo anyway. Old world superstitions.”

There's no such thing, okay? It’s not real!

But that’s not what she meant. What she meant was that he’d broken my luck. And in the end, that’s why he left me.

“It was just a necklace,” I assure him, though my heart aches. “You bought me a dozen necklaces.”

“I never gave you anything, May,” he says sadly.

And I want to rock him in my arms even though he is the one who hurt me. That is the way it always ends up. But I want someone to hold me, keep _me_ safe. I want him to sweep me off my feet and make everything okay. When I told my friends that I was going to California with John Lennon, that we were lovers, they were envious. They said it was like a fairytale. I had found my Prince Charming. That didn’t turn out to be true, did it?

Prince Charming is locked in a Japanese cell. No amount of wishing on stars is going to get him out again. It’s down to lawyers and money. And John, lighting candles and leaving offerings on windowsills. I picture him, barefoot in the stark, white Dakota apartment leaving parcels filled with locks of hair, begging the spirits to protect his lover.

“What do I do? What now?” he whispers.

And I hate him. I want him. I want him to want me like that. To need me like that.

“About what, baby?” I ask with tenderness and understanding I don’t feel.

“Paul.”

Ah, Paul. One day I will ask him if he appreciates it. The pig-headed obsessive nature of John’s love for him. His hate of him. Love or hate, there is no difference, really. Does he know how lucky he is?

“Why don’t you write him a card?” I suggest. “Tell him you’re here for him.”

“How would… what would I say?”

And I swear to god… sometimes I don’t know how the man does anything without someone to hold his hand.

“Would you…?”

He wants me to write Paul a card. What can I write in his name? How honest will he let me be?

  


_Dear Paul,_

_I hope they’re not buggering you in that Japanese jail. I’m sorry they caught you but honestly, man. What were you thinking? I read you hid it in your children’s clothing. That’s pretty damn stupid. I heard a rumour Yoko called in a favour and had you checked. But I don’t think that’s true. At least I hope it wasn’t. To be honest, it sounds a bit like her. She’s nothing if not resentful._

_I really hope they aren’t abusing you in jail, Paul. Because the idea of anyone else touching you still makes me sick._

_Your,_

__

_Johnny_

  


I’m joking. Of course I’m joking. I won’t write that. I won’t. I genuinely like Paul.

“I can come over. Now…Would you help me? Would you? Please?”

When he was good he was very, very good. 

“Okay.”

“You’re the only one who really knows me.”

When he was bad, he was horrid.

That’s what he said to him, too. I heard him say it. I heard him say it because I took a picture of them when it happened out on the deck. The only picture of the two of them together during John’s so-called Lost Weekend. The one where he met a random girl one Saturday and had an affair that lasted eighteen months. Oh,wait. It's still going on, isn't it? Lost Weekend, my ass.

I don’t know what they were talking about, I only know how they looked to me. Like they belonged together. Like they were made for each other.

“You’re the only one who really knows the real me,” John said to him.

I thought he was going to laugh it off but instead he seemed to melt, his shoulder hit John’s abruptly, his head tilting sideways so he could whisper in his ear.

“Don’t say that now, John. Please.”

“It’s the truth.”

“It’s too late.”

I saw John’s thumb stroke Paul’s wrist. Quick as a flash.

“I love you. It’s only you.”

Paul looked away and laughed softly.  


“Did you hear me?”

I don’t know what Paul heard. I heard a curse. I heard a declaration of war. Those words of love years too late. Yes, I think John cursed him. I think he made it all happen, even this last drug bust in Japan.

“I’m going to get a cab. I’m coming over, May,” he says.

My throat closes up. “Come over,” I repeat. “I want to help you.”

I saw Paul a few times after John went back to Yoko. He always looks at me like he is trying to see past me. See some truth that is hidden within my person. He is searching for a confirmation of what is between them, just like John is. I could be more forthcoming but something stops me. I don’t know if it’s because I want John to myself or because I’m jealous of their bond. I think everyone in the world is both fascinated and repelled by that bond. What right do two human beings have, to be that close?

"I never knew how to put it into words," John continues. "That thing with me and him."

I understand. I find it difficult to explain my feelings for John. Sometimes I call it Stockholm syndrome. Sometimes I think we are soulmates.

"And fuck if I know what he...if he..."

He asked me so many times. Played me the songs over and over. "What's he trying to say in this? What does he mean? Who is he in love with? Surely not Linda? A friend of mine... Ordinary wine on the left bank... that was what we drank in Paris. Is he singing about me? Is that about me? Does he love me? Is it me, May?"

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, John. I don't know. I don't know.

I think I saw it, though. Whatever it was, from my kitchen with Linda that night. They were laughing while we got the dessert. I can't remember what it was. Some kind of pie. I remember John joking I should sprinkle bacon bits over it.

The laughter stopped and John stood. From the door we could see his profile. He had the strangest expression on his face. Even now I can't really do it justice. Tender, panicked, so vulnerable it was as though he'd peeled back his skin to reveal the flesh and bone beneath.

I turned to Linda and told her to hand me the whipped cream. I was pushing open the door when I felt her hand grip my wrist and she pulled me back in, her fingernails digging into my skin.

“Don't,” she hissed and shoved me against the counter.

John had vanished but we could see Paul sitting on his own. He laughed a little, perhaps at some off-screen joke of John’s and then a look of complete shock came over his face, his mouth went slack.

“No,” Paul said. But it sounded like yes. It sounded like yes, yes, yes.

Linda was still gripping my hand. I wanted to shake her away but I was frozen in place.

We could see Paul lean back slightly in his seat. Every muscle in his face was tense. His eyes were wide-open, his lips were quivering.

Beside me, Linda was staring openly, her face paper white. I tried to turn away, to get her to turn away with me but she refused.

Paul closed his eyes, his eyelashes fluttering rapidly, he licked his lips, breath huffing out.

“Oh,” he whispered.

Linda broke, she pressed her face against my shoulder. I could feel her wet mouth through the fabric of my shirt, the edge of her teeth as she bit down to choke back a sob. Her despair was tangible.

“Nevermind,” I told her. “Just ignore it.”

She shook her head once and then she looked back up at her husband.

Paul was murmuring something inaudible, his head nodding in time to some unheard melody. His face was mottled red and white, he bit down hard on his lip. Paul's shoulders went up sharply and he dropped his hands into his lap.

Then he said something out loud, quite loud, loud enough that we could hear it as though he were seated beside us in the kitchen. A single word. I was never sure if the word was 'darling' or 'Johnny' or some combination of the two.

Linda and I held on to each other for a few more moments and then she shook herself slightly, ran the back of her hand over her eyes and called out: “Who wants dessert?”

I was shocked by her transformation; she looked so calm, her eyes only slightly red. She slapped a smile on her face and entered the room. I hung back a moment pretending to check the stove.

I had known about them. Obviously. But this was a different situation entirely. This had been blatant and undeniable. I suppose, in hindsight, I was jealous. Maybe a bit disgusted. I had been in the music business for years at that point, so that's not what I mean when I say disgusted. I've seen things. I was disgusted at _them_. They had something people would kill to have. They had it all and they threw it away. I don't know why. Because of fear? A need to be universally loved? To secure their musical legacy? Because they just don't know how to just love each other without the hate and jealousy and game playing?

Dessert was consumed amid jokes and laughter. Taking my cue from Linda, I didn't let my feelings show. When it came time to say goodbye John took Linda's hand and pulled her near. Then he kissed her full on the mouth.

"You take care, sweetheart," Linda said to him.

I would have spat in his face if I were her. No, I would have kissed him back.

What I did was call Yoko. What I did was tell her what I had seen. When she redoubled her efforts and won him back I only had myself to blame. I thought to myself: at least I can understand Yoko. At least I can understand her ambition and his desire for a mother figure. I’m a little ashamed. I thought: at least Yoko is a woman. I know how to fight against a woman. Yoko knows all about curses. Hers are intentional, organised. She cursed me with sulphur, with cayenne, with arrowhead in a glass vial. When I found out what it was I threw the mixture down the toilet but it still held true. I think that she cursed me long ago. When she looked up at me with that sweet expression and said: "You don't have a boyfriend. Do you, May?"

She cursed him with roses, jasmine, gardenias and citrus. Her love-spell. The scent clings to him, cloying, like rotting flowers. When he fucks me, wherever he fucks me– in strangers' beds, on hardwood floors, on sofas at parties, he reeks of roses, of death.

He went back to her but he says he still loves me, and I let him use me while in public he plays her faithful husband. I’m worse than my mother. I’m lower than a dog. Taking scraps from Yoko and Paul.

“It may take me a while to get to you, Fung Yee. I need to think of an excuse...in case Mother is up... she keeps strange hours."

I suck in my breath. “John, remember when Yoko was pregnant?”

“What?” he asks impatiently.

“Remember when Yoko was pregnant with Sean and I asked you what you wanted to call him?" I ask him.

"Yes, yes."

"You said all you could think was ‘Paris’. That's what you said. Do you remember that?"

There is a pause while he lights another cigarette.

"I know what happened in Paris, John," I say.

Linda told me. She told me so casually over coffee. About John and Paul's hitchhiking trip to Spain. Their two weeks in Paris.

“And John paid for everything. You should see Paul's face when he talks about it. Like it's still the nicest thing anyone has ever done for him.”

She told me there were photos.

“Just the cutest things you ever saw. Paul at nineteen and John just turned twenty one.”

She stopped there and looked down at her coffee, stirred it absently. When she looked back up she seemed sad.

“They were really something,” I said carefully.

“Still are.”

Linda twisted her wedding ring around her finger three times.

I know what happened in Paris in that small hotel. I picture them, in the dark room, lit by the street lamps outside. Their pale youthful bodies coiled around each other tightly. I picture how they lay there in that narrow bed. Staring into each other's eyes, seeing things there that other people would never be privy to. When they pressed their mouths together they breathed in and out as one.

"Why can't you just be honest for once?" I ask him softly.

"What do you know? What did Yoko tell you?" He’s angry now, his voice taut, his accent more clipped. I should try to defuse the situation but I’m tired of walking on eggshells.

"Yoko," I say pointedly. "Yoko didn't tell me anything. Come on. Aren't you tired of lying to yourself?"

"Lying?" he spits.

"Lying to yourself about him. It's 4 am. You've called me in secret, hysterical. You have to realise – "

"He's, well...we were friends once. I'm concerned. What's wrong with that?" he interrupts me.

"Nothing! Nothing, you should be. You should be concerned. But that's not all. That's not it..."

"You're jealous of him!" he exclaims. "Jealous of Paul!"

Yes, I am! I am, goddamn it! God, even the way he says his name! Even that sounds like a word of love, like a holy word. Like it’s something so precious even the way he holds it in his mouth is special. 

“I’m not blind, John. And I’m not her. I want you to be happy! And if that… if he…” I can’t make myself finish the sentence.

It is so quiet I think he’s hung up on me. “Hello? John?” I ask.

“I’m coming over later. Wait for me,” he says at last. He sounds calmer, determined. He sounds like a different man entirely. I can never keep track of all the different Johns he has inside him: Yoko’s John, Mine, Beatle John, Man of Peace, Sean’s Daddy, the John who loves Paul.

I know I should tell him to stay away, but what can I do? What can I do? I never say no to him.

“Okay. I’m here,” I say.

“May. I do love you, you know. You don’t have it entirely right. Not entirely.”

He hangs up then and I sit in my kitchen drinking my cold tea, too tired to cry, too tired to sleep. I get dressed and feed my cats and listen to The Pretenders until all I can hear is Chrissie Hynde's rapid-fire lyrics and the garbled guitars and I can’t hear John’s voice anymore. I can’t hear his voice making promises, telling me he loves me. He never shows that day or the next. But I keep waiting for him anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic hit me all at once several months ago. I was thinking about trying a different style and contemplating what the perfect fic would be to try first person and this fic was born. I wrote 1000 words in one go in front of the stove at work. Then I went home and thought of a title. 
> 
> Thank you to swaying-daisies, single-pigeon, twinka and aceonthebass and Tani for being the first people to read snippets of this and assure me that it could work. 
> 
> Special thanks to Twinka, my love, for being the lovely encouraging person you are and just being such a fan of this story. For finding ways to make it better and challenging me all the time to better myself.
> 
> Special thanks to Bakerstreetafternoon for reading and commenting and being there with the lovely RP and all the encouragement. 
> 
> I read May Pang's book: Loving John in order to write this properly and hope I did her justice. I think she's a lovely person.
> 
> Lastly. I cheated a bit on the title. Its actually a Korean proverb but as many Asian cultures tie into each other I hope it's used in China too. The meaning of the proverb is that there can be no true lasting argument between loved ones. Because the bond is like water and it can't be cut with a knife.


End file.
